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Who Codes? Ellen Codes! Community Profile

Coming towards the halfway point of our Plus Program in Perth, we sat down with a few of the women in the cohort to hear more about their tech journey, from how it began, to where they’re headed next. 

Below, we hear from Ellen. With a background in maths and statistics, Ellen was unsure what her journey held, but through the content already delivered in the Plus program, she now feels empowered to have a career that has real impact. Check out her full story below!

1. How did your tech journey begin?
My tech journey began through statistics!

I started studying maths and statistics but didn’t know what I was going to do.. just that I didn’t want to be a maths teacher like people often assumed! As I progressed through Uni, I started to hear about “Data Scientists”. I researched their roles and realised that the statistics and maths concepts that I was studying, were some of the fundamentals of data science. Although at the time I was worried that I didn’t know much about coding, I was lucky enough to land a few data science internships and then a graduate job at BHP. From there, my official tech/coding journey began and have been working as a mathematician in Technology ever since.

2. How has/will She Codes Plus impact your career path?
She Codes has helped me build on top of the skills I already have as a data scientist and researcher. Now, I feel empowered to pave a career path where I can design and drive full-stack technology projects that have a real impact in industry.

3. What has been your favourite thing about She Codes Plus so far?
Having a cohort of passionate women to share the experience with! I am so grateful for all the new friends I have made, that I otherwise wouldn’t have crossed paths with and the fun times we have learning, problem solving, debugging and helping each other. I wouldn’t have been able to achieve what I have so far, without the support of the amazing cohort and mentors.

4. What does success look like for you?
Success looks like:

  • Being proud of the web portfolio I develop.
  • Being more confident and assured in my Technology journey (a step in the right direction to beating imposter syndrome!)
  • Being able to understand the fundamentals of full stack development and how I can utilise this in my data analytics work.
  • It would also be nice to be able to confidently pass on some of my She Codes learning to others. Particularly, as I am currently an industry mentor to a group of year 10 girls who are developing their own phone app and I so desperately want to be able to answer more of their technical questions 🙂

To stay up to date with our current cohort, in both Perth and Brisbane, follow us on social media! You can find us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. Or, if you’d like to collaborate on an upcoming project and provide tech programs for your community, reach out to us today.